Trilliant (News - Alert), a smart grid communications provider with headquarters in Redwood City, California, and ELO Sistemas Eletronicos, a metering technology supplier based in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, have formed a strategic partnership. The agreement will enable both companies to package the Trilliant Communications Platform with ELO's metering expertise to offer smarter energy to utilities, businesses and consumers throughout Latin America.

Energy demand in Brazil has increased by close to one-third in the last decade. Indeed, Brazil’s utilities will spend about $670 million per year between 2014 and 2017 to install some 4.5 million meters, Bloomberg (News - Alert) New Energy Finance analyst Maria Gabriela da Rocha Oliveira predicted in a recent report.

“Combining Trilliant’s decades of communication expertise with our metering intelligence will help deliver smarter energy across Brazil and Latin America," said Marcos Rizzo, vice president of Business Development for ELO Sistemas Eletrônicos. "This collaboration will enable ELO to provide to its customers [with] a fully transparent smart grid and smart meter solution based on TCP / IP concepts, ensuring total interoperability of technology."

The Trilliant Communications Platform has been proven at more than 200 utilities and energy retailers worldwide— including Centrica, Iberdrola USA and Hydro One Networks— and is backed by prominent investors such as ABB, GE, Investor Growth Capital, MissionPoint Capital Partners, UMC Capital, VantagePoint Capital Partners and Zouk Ventures. The platform is specifically tailored to a business' particular goals, regulatory model, and service territory.

Additionally, Trilliant can sell ELO's electric meters to customers across Latin America and throughout the world. This integrated metering technology is expected to be available in late 2012.

"This partnership with ELO, Latin America's leading metering technology provider, is a key step in Trilliant's continued global growth," said Walter Lowes, Trilliant's managing director for the Americas. "Building on our current work in the region, this partnership with ELO is indicative of the significant opportunity that utilities in Latin America have to encourage continued economic growth by utilizing modern technology to provide power in smarter and more efficient ways."

In related news, ELO already has a similar deal with Echelon, which will enable the San Jose, California-based company’s powerline-carrier-based technology to be incorporated into its deployments.

Want to learn more about the growing communications opportunities in Latin America? Don’t miss LatinComm Conference & Expo taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. Stay in touch with everything happening at LatinComm. Follow us on Twitter.